The Fort Worth Press - Frustrated Biden enters second year looking to fight

USD -
AED 3.67299
AFN 67.946782
ALL 93.207221
AMD 386.974854
ANG 1.802123
AOA 910.98202
ARS 998.755701
AUD 1.544354
AWG 1.8
AZN 1.691712
BAM 1.857325
BBD 2.01886
BDT 119.48491
BGN 1.854553
BHD 0.376879
BIF 2952.762636
BMD 1
BND 1.345641
BOB 6.908832
BRL 5.776602
BSD 0.999886
BTN 84.392794
BWP 13.725155
BYN 3.272208
BYR 19600
BZD 2.01548
CAD 1.402545
CDF 2865.000434
CHF 0.887495
CLF 0.035562
CLP 981.309839
CNY 7.230099
CNH 7.24008
COP 4475.83
CRC 510.721544
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 104.713111
CZK 23.944974
DJF 178.046418
DKK 7.06352
DOP 60.473685
DZD 133.681663
EGP 49.353204
ERN 15
ETB 123.94359
EUR 0.94701
FJD 2.27435
FKP 0.789317
GBP 0.78787
GEL 2.730102
GGP 0.789317
GHS 16.072666
GIP 0.789317
GMD 71.00036
GNF 8618.069932
GTQ 7.721894
GYD 209.184836
HKD 7.78008
HNL 25.247384
HRK 7.133259
HTG 131.382772
HUF 384.544017
IDR 15914.7
ILS 3.738105
IMP 0.789317
INR 84.433902
IQD 1309.851665
IRR 42092.497889
ISK 138.320354
JEP 0.789317
JMD 158.287592
JOD 0.709098
JPY 155.767044
KES 129.250012
KGS 86.3765
KHR 4061.574109
KMF 466.349718
KPW 899.999621
KRW 1400.903561
KWD 0.307599
KYD 0.833207
KZT 495.71708
LAK 21965.811966
LBP 89540.45584
LKR 292.121707
LRD 184.475424
LSL 18.302027
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.884048
MAD 9.98661
MDL 18.112322
MGA 4684.710351
MKD 58.241904
MMK 3247.960992
MNT 3397.999946
MOP 8.01546
MRU 39.750432
MUR 47.190196
MVR 15.449715
MWK 1733.742308
MXN 20.587085
MYR 4.480497
MZN 63.897759
NAD 18.302027
NGN 1679.85963
NIO 36.800319
NOK 11.123215
NPR 135.033904
NZD 1.702345
OMR 0.385033
PAB 0.999905
PEN 3.810139
PGK 3.961938
PHP 58.753497
PKR 277.715048
PLN 4.09533
PYG 7808.968491
QAR 3.64504
RON 4.711401
RSD 110.814981
RUB 99.499055
RWF 1372.787359
SAR 3.756074
SBD 8.383555
SCR 13.598533
SDG 601.506089
SEK 10.984197
SGD 1.342375
SHP 0.789317
SLE 22.814974
SLL 20969.504736
SOS 571.404152
SRD 35.356496
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.749122
SYP 2512.529858
SZL 18.309939
THB 34.855016
TJS 10.658475
TMT 3.51
TND 3.157965
TOP 2.342096
TRY 34.34758
TTD 6.789045
TWD 32.561028
TZS 2659.999759
UAH 41.219825
UGX 3669.445974
UYU 42.477826
UZS 12806.024577
VES 44.994614
VND 25400
VUV 118.722009
WST 2.791591
XAF 622.917458
XAG 0.032948
XAU 0.00039
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.753255
XOF 622.958869
XPF 113.255209
YER 249.801597
ZAR 18.24247
ZMK 9001.209182
ZMW 27.421652
ZWL 321.999592
  • RBGPF

    -0.9400

    59.25

    -1.59%

  • SCS

    -0.0260

    13.344

    -0.19%

  • BTI

    0.1800

    35.6

    +0.51%

  • CMSD

    0.0250

    24.755

    +0.1%

  • NGG

    0.4400

    62.56

    +0.7%

  • BCC

    -1.6100

    140.94

    -1.14%

  • GSK

    0.1110

    35.221

    +0.32%

  • RIO

    -0.2050

    60.415

    -0.34%

  • CMSC

    0.0150

    24.625

    +0.06%

  • RYCEF

    -0.1500

    6.96

    -2.16%

  • RELX

    0.1950

    46.315

    +0.42%

  • AZN

    0.5950

    65.885

    +0.9%

  • BCE

    0.1150

    27.325

    +0.42%

  • JRI

    0.0100

    13.25

    +0.08%

  • VOD

    0.0300

    8.78

    +0.34%

  • BP

    0.3150

    28.885

    +1.09%

Frustrated Biden enters second year looking to fight
Frustrated Biden enters second year looking to fight

Frustrated Biden enters second year looking to fight

Joe Biden 1.0 was a calming, grandfatherly figure, a low-key veteran coming out of retirement in 2020 to heal a nation deeply divided by Donald Trump. A year later, meet Biden 2.0 -- the frustrated, angry fighter.

Text size:

"I'm tired of being quiet," he said last week in a blistering speech.

Biden was referring specifically to his many fruitless "quiet conversations" behind the scenes with senators in a doomed effort to get his signature legislation on voting rights passed. He could just as well have been summing up the exasperation of his first 12 months in the Oval Office.

And if 2021 saw mild Biden, 2022 looks set to feature a louder, more pugnacious version -- a president running out of time, patience and allies to save what remain of his ambitions.

Biden took office January 20, 2021 -- at 78, the oldest man to ever become US president -- facing incredible challenges.

Covid-19 was out of control, Trump's supporters had just two weeks earlier tried overturning the presidential election, the economy was comatose, and around the world US allies were reeling in Trump shock of their own.

Biden's answer to all that -- not to mention to the explosive tensions over racism after a series of Black Americans were killed during botched arrests -- was to promise competency, old-fashioned decency and unity.

"My whole soul is in this. Bringing America together, uniting our people," Biden pledged in his inaugural address.

And he even seemed to have a chance of pulling it off.

Democrats narrowly controlled both houses of Congress, Trump had been banished from Twitter, and Covid vaccines were ready.

"There were high expectations that Biden, given his experience and his knowledge of Washington, would be able... to make the trains run on time again," said Lara Brown, director of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.

"It was all about a return to normalcy."

- 'Hubris' -

Fast forward to the start of Biden's second year.

Beset by the Delta and Omicron Covid variants, an ever-more divided America, and the likely loss of Congress to the Republicans in November's midterm elections, Biden's luck at the age of 79 seems to have run short.

With a majority of just one in the Senate and barely more than that in the House, his huge social spending plan -- called Build Back Better -- is dead in the water. Ditto the voting rights package he says is needed to save US democracy from Trump's supporters.

A centrist at heart, Biden has failed to connect with the right or satisfy his own party's left. As he's discovering, the center today is hard to find.

Average approval polls on fivethirtyeight.com are at a lowly 42 percent, down from 53. A recent Quinnipiac poll, while an outlier, posted a disturbing 33 percent approval.

Abroad, the picture is similar.

While world allies do like having a United States not governed by Trump back, the country's humiliating military exit from Afghanistan torpedoed the Biden administration's aura of professionalism. Certainly Russia seems unconcerned, as it masses troops on Ukraine's border.

It all adds up to a bitter awakening from the days when the White House buzzed with idealism and talk of Biden emulating his hero Franklin Roosevelt, who led America through the Great Depression in the 1930s.

"Their optimism, combined with the public expectation that all of this would be solved, led them down a path of hubris," Brown said.

- 'Less shouting' or 'fight'? -

There's still a scenario where Biden comes out on top: the pandemic burns out, the economy stabilizes, inflation recedes, and with the subsequent feel-good factor Biden gets his party to reverse those legislative defeats just in time for the midterms.

Biden's aides also point out they got Congress to pass the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, juicing a Covid-ravaged economy and preventing more widespread misery. Remarkably, Democrats also got strong Republican support in passing a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package.

All that with a razor-thin majority in Congress.

The more likely outcome for 2022, though, is continued Democratic infighting, followed by Republicans winning one or both chambers of Congress in November.

At that point, Biden can expect aggressive House investigations, and even possibly impeachment, as Republicans seek to further undermine their opponents' ability to govern.

And it would become increasingly likely a 2024 White House challenge could come from Trump, even as the former president continues to try to subvert the 2020 election.

So much for Biden's vow to restore "the soul of America."

David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist at the heart of the mainstream establishment, advises Biden to pivot back to "less shouting and more of Biden's trademark common sense."

But Biden, his back against the wall, is signaling that he sees things more darkly going into 2022.

"I did not seek this fight," he said in another dramatic speech this month, this time commemorating the anniversary of the January 6 storming of Congress by Trump supporters.

"But I will not shrink from it either," Biden said. "I will stand in this breach."

L.Holland--TFWP